Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1887-01-06

likeness, stamped into MS young
spirit by the hot contact of "a
half polluted nature, seemed yet to
make him unworthy. He could
not come to her now; though
why, or that he ever should, seemed
half in doubt His life. SO direct of
current until the Greuk-faced, Indian
footed Maun had entered it, seemed
still, as it had for months, to run
round and round in an eddy where she
had sunk out of his sight 1t did not
seem able to straighten away upon its
course. Yet. Celeste was there before
him, little aside and little above the
millions of the world. with that inn
ponderable something softly drawing
him to her. But he felt old and
recoiling before her whiteness. So he
did not seek her, but boarded the train
again, and. CHANGING through valley,
field and wood, which were beginning
to stir little with the near approach
of spring. came erelong TO Charleston,
S. G.. Here he had hoped to look upon
the face of his dead mothers sister, but
after amonth-long search he found that
she, her husband and three children,
after Charleston was laid in ashes dur
ing the war, had gone, possibly, te
New Orleans.
So at last he turned his face towara
the gulf, and, being Whirled away
through the sunshine and the sap
witched world felt something of the
numbing WEAKNESS that had gathered
upon him melt off and dissolve among
the buds and fresh leaves by the way
side By times the past and even tue
oh Of IL
consciousness, so reused and sweetened
were his senses by this racing through
the waking world. But at length he
was in New Orleans, and the days be-
gan to swing back, unhinge and fall
into golden ashes. as he wandered
through the quaint and bioomy by
streets, and out the long suburban
lanes that plowed away into the coun-
try through seas of freshest vCrdure.
1t was elixir to him; the balm, and
glow, and glitter of the tropic world.
For two weeks he went about drinking
it in, half fOroetful of his mission.
Then slowly he found himself driving
the search with an unflagging fresh
ness OF spirit that he had not known
for months. He was getting rested;
the springiness of youth, which he had
all but lost through ovcrwOrk, was re-
turning to him. Yet when a month
had dropped away his efforts remained
unrewarded.
AS at Charleston, the most minute
inquiry touching 1vyl Snaer yielded no
revealmcnt, and the footprints of his
relatives seemed lost. Still he followed
the quest another week ere he had done
sitting; then one morning As he walked
along the Tivola Circle and crossed
it's green and -dewy swell, he found
himself thinking of some other field,
and at a loss which way to turn. At
his back lay the pleasant, dreamy old
city, and there below HIM, with dozens
of water-craft riding IS if upon mir
ror, flowed the slowmovin@, sea-lke
river which, far, far away in the blue
north. sucked into its mighty trough
the limpid waters that bathcd the feet
of OpenstOne. 1t came upon him
what fair and wcIl-nigh illimitable
land is ours, and how doubtful a task
was his.
He went down TO the wharves; sew
eral great steamers were filing for
their outward Journeys; one to st.
Louis, one to Liverpool and another
to New York. A sudden impulse
seized him. He went back to his
hotel. procured his luggage and by
ten o'clock, with the fragrant breezes
of the Delta streaming against his fore
head, was watching the vast green
landscape melt to right and left as the
big New York steamer moved away
over the CLASSY reaches to the gulf
Something very like pleasure bloomed
through all his being as he leaned up
on the quarter-rail and watched the
shimmering panorama unrol. Beauty
was more to him than to many. It
tasted sweet and thrilled him when
first beheld, not unlike some strange
delicious honeycOmb fresh crushed
against the palate. 1t was his guide,
or rather the thing that lured him,
though he was scarcely conscious of it.
Somewhat as beauty in the material
world, in landscape, eye, cheek, brow
or carriage, made his young blood
blush about within his veins with pleas
ure, the lovely in ethics and actions
stirred him. In either case within his
own senses it was a pure feeling; the
response of something fine within to
something fine without, taste detect
ing and guessing at the truth of life
and duty by natures finer tlavors.
At length the steamer swept out into
the open deep, and John Earring for
the first time beheld the limitlcss waste
before him. How filled he was! To
north and south and east and west
stretched out the fields Of liquid gray,
of liquid green, of liquid blue, shot far
and near with silver. What beauty
was here! what power, what breadth,
what dignity of motion! His perception
seemed to widen at the sight. He did
not ask for companionship now, though
that upon this palpitating hive of life
floating alone across the liquid fields,
in some measure was inevitably his.
Yet he kept apart as best he
could. feasting himself upon the
ever-drifting dream of loneliness. and
leaving gladly to others the genial
commerce of speech. 1t was not that
he was cold and uncongenial, for he
was neither of these, but that he was
not content. He was not satisfied with
himself; then ever overhung the mys-
terry of his house, and ever before him
went the half-defined vision of Celeste.
Now the consciousness crossed him by
times, fetching with it a little thrill,
that he was drifting towards her. and
when he had quit the steamer at New
York his first impulse was to take rail-
road passage for the West. But ne put
the feeling aside, and another month
went by as he watched the floods of life
pour to and fro along the great town $
shining passes. wandered on the Hud-
son Heights, in and out the libraries,
in the parks, along the Bat
terry, through slum, and mart,
and court and factory. with an
overwhelming, wondering comprehe n
sion of the power and adornment OF